The Virginia Health Care Foundation (VHCF) has awarded the following grants totaling over $1.7 million to 16 health safety net organizations throughout Virginia.

Apr 08, 2019

Richmond, VA – The Virginia Health Care Foundation (VHCF) has awarded the following grants totaling over $1.7 million to 16 health safety net organizations throughout Virginia to increase access to medical, dental, and behavioral health services for uninsured and medically underserved Virginians.

Grantees and projects awarded follow:

Primary Medical Care

  • The Ledwith-Lewis Free Clinic (LLFC) – $8,099 to help support a part-time Nurse Practitioner. The VHCF-funded Nurse Practitioner is the Clinic’s first, and only, paid healthcare provider.  By supplementing the work of the Clinic’s dedicated volunteer providers, she will enable LLFC to expand its hours and provide medical care, educational programs, specialty referrals, and medication assistance to hundreds of additional patients each year.
  • New Horizons Healthcare – $99,840 to help support a Nurse Practitioner to expand primary care capacity. The VHCF-funded Nurse Practitioner will operate on an open access schedule, primarily offering same day and short notice appointments for acute care and new patient visits.  She will also expand the health center’s operating hours, offering appointments into the evening hours to better accommodate patients’ work schedules.
  • Richmond City Health District – $30,830 to help support a part-time Nurse Practitioner at the Health Resource Center in the Southwood Apartment Community. This is the fifth Health Resource Center funded by VHCF.  The Southwood Health Resource Center provides women’s health services, screenings for sexually transmitted infections, educational classes, referrals to local health safety net providers, and other essential medical resources to residents of the 1,200 unit community.

Dental Care

  • Augusta Regional Clinic – $17,147 to help support the salaries of a part-time Endodonist and Dental Assistant who provide a variety of complex dental services, including root canal therapy, dental surgery, and the treatment of dental trauma for local children, pregnant women, and uninsured adults.
  • Community Health Center of the New River Valley (CHCNRV) – $148,400 to help support the salary and benefits of a full-time dentist at its new dental clinic in Dublin. The VHCF-funded dentist will enable CHCNRV to begin providing dental care as well as medical and behavioral health services at its recently expanded Pulaski/Radford location.
  • Harrisonburg Community Health Center – $91,600 to help support a full-time dentist and part-time dental hygienist at its recently expanded dental clinic. The VHCF-funded dental team will enable the health center to serve more than 2,000 additional patients each year and begin offering a variety of complex endodontic procedures.
  • Northern Virginia Dental Clinic (NVDC) – $68,625 to help support two part-time dentists, a part-time dental hygienist, and a full-time dental assistant. Working alongside NVDC’s team of dedicated volunteers and paid staff, these experienced dental professionals will significantly increase patient capacity at NVDC’s Fairfax location.
  • Rockbridge Area Health Center (RAHC) – $126,563 to help support a full-time dentist and dental hygienist at its new satellite dental clinic. RAHC’s Mountain View Family Dentistry is the first, and only, dental safety net clinic in Buena Vista and has dramatically increased the availability of dental services for residents of the Rockbridge County area.
  • VCU Health Community Memorial Hospital – $100,000 to help support a full-time dentist at its new Family Dental & Specialty Center. The new Dental Center, which opened in late November, provides full-time dental and oral health services to the residents of South Hill and surrounding counties.  The VHCF-funded dentist will enable the center to treat 1,900 additional patients each year.

Behavioral Health Care

  • ChildSavers – $56,714 to help support two Behavioral Health Clinicians and a part-time Pediatric Psychiatrist providing trauma-informed mental health services low-income children in Richmond. Together, the clinicians and psychiatrist create personalized treatment plans including therapy, assessments, and treatments designed to address each child’s individual experience of trauma and build positive coping and resiliency skills.
  • CrossOver Healthcare Ministry – $24,435 to help support a part-time Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. The experienced Psych NP divides her time between CrossOver’s two locations and provides assessments, mental health treatment, and medication management to patients with mental health needs.

Medicaid Outreach and Enrollment

With support from the Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission and matching grants from the Danville Regional Foundation, The Harvest Foundation, Sentara/Optima Health, and the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services, VHCF has also underwritten the costs of seven Outreach Workers located in Halifax, Pittsylvania, Smyth, and Wise Counties and the cities of Danville and Martinsville.  Over the next two years, these outreach workers will inform their communities about the new rules for Medicaid coverage and provide individual application assistance to more than 35,000 Virginians who are newly eligible for Medicaid.

Last Updated on April 8, 2019